The subject matter disclosed herein relates to focal spot evaluation in X-ray devices.
In modern medicine, medical professionals routinely conduct patient imaging examinations to assess the internal tissue of a patient in a non-invasive manner. Furthermore, for industrial applications related to security or quality control, screeners may desire to non-invasively assess the contents of a container (e.g., a package or a piece of luggage) or the internal structure of a manufactured part. Accordingly, for medical, security, and industrial applications, X-ray imaging techniques may be useful for noninvasively characterizing the internal composition of a subject of interest.
X-ray imaging techniques typically involves the generation of X-rays from a source, such as an X-ray tube. Such X-ray emitters typically utilize an emitter that emits electrons that are electro-statically or magnetically focused on a target that emits X-rays in response to the electron stream. In such contexts, the impact region of the electrons on the target is known as the focal spot. The characteristics (e.g., position, size, and so forth) of the focal spot may difficult to maintain within the desired tolerances or may otherwise vary during operation. It may be useful to know the characteristics of the focal spot in a real-time manner as these characteristics may impact the image quality of images generated using the emitted X-rays and/or may be useful to know in the reconstruction of such images. Similarly, such characteristics, when measured in real-time, may be used as part of a real-time feedback loop to maintain the focal spot within the desired tolerances.